[vdr] Re: AW: Re: How to get the VDR box silent

[Emil Naepflein <Emil.Naepflein@philosys.de>]

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:11:30 +0100, "Reinhard Walter Buchner"
<rw.buchner@freenet.de> wrote:

> >Look at www.ebay.de for the Multitainer. It works quite well and looks
> >better than most standard PC cases.
> 
> You ARE kidding, aren't you?  Taste is a personal thing ;o)) "I"
> think it looks just like a cheap CD player (really NO offense
> meant!) .

Nevertheless it looks better than most PC cases. ;-)
BTW, my Pioneer 717 DVD player looks similar, and not cheap. ;-)

> However, purely from a technical design point, the MT has several
> drawbacks: You can' t access the rear of any PCI cards from the
> outside world, because FSC never designed the MT to be used as
> a STB 

That's really no problem. I have modded mine to have LNB-IN, LNB-OUT,
SCART, audio out, coax/opt digital out from my 1.3 DVB card. The back
now looks like a standard STB and not like a PC. ;-)

> and once again this case is also missing the possibility to
> insert a CAM & card from the front.

Yes, that may be a problem. But I put in my Premiere Card once in my SAT
Receiver and never remove it for years. And if you do some serious
modding you probably can put the CI-slot behind the front door. You
loose some of the connectors there, but this is not important for pure
VDR use.

> I have the Activy 300 from FSC whích almost suits my needs,
> except:
> 
> - Still looks cheap somehow

It looks cheap and is expensive. ;-)
The MT looks cheap and is cheap - go figure. ;-)

> - large display isn't possible
> - max of 2 PCI slots (I'm working on a third one)

More slots are pretty useless for me. For a pure VDR box you have two
slots available for DVB-cards. This is enough for a desktop unit.

> - missing parallel & serial ports(used internally)
> - no gameport (okay, not that important)

I am not onto games.

> I guess I am a little hard to satisfy, when it comes to cases ;o)) I
> have also always had this problem looking for a suitable tower
> case for my normal PC (so I ended up heavily modding a Chief ;o))

I just move awkward PC cases out of sight. ;-) My server is in the
basement.

> Somehow most manufacturers build cases en mas, but never
> really seem to have actually used one of them to build a PC. I
> have yet to a PC (HTPC or not) case which doesn't have at least
> 4 or 5 REALLY serious design flaws (sharp edges, unable to
> access certain parts w/o having to dismantle 90% of the PC,
> not enough drive bays, etc)

You cannot have everything - except you are prepared to pay the price.
:-)

Emil


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